LXXII
AtSt.Paul’s Cathedral, beside the glorious bones of England’s elder idol, the Admiral of the empty eye-socket and the vacant sleeve, the grand old white head of England’s soldier-hero was laid to rest. The Army was Chief Mourner, the Nation followed him to the tomb. Britons had heartily hated him as Minister—as military leader they adored him. Nothing was remembered in that parting hour but what they owed to him. His funeral wreaths were hardly withered when,—with some noise of cheering from the Officers’ Mess at lunch-time, echoed from the Sergeants’—who were having dinner—caught up by a squad dismissed from drill, and vociferously joined in by heads that were thrust from troop-room windows, it was made known at the Barracks of the Hundredth Lancers that the gentleman who had got himself elected President of the French a year or so previously, had now proclaimed himself Emperor of that nation. Upon the subject Mrs. Geogehagan was as bitterly sarcastic as Mrs. Geogehagan alone could be.
“Hooroo, Jude!” said she. “Cook him up wid a crown on! Sure there will be no houldin’ him now—such will be the proide and consayt av the cobbler’s dog!”
“And will it do us any good—the gentleman’s being made an Emperor?” asked Mrs. Joshua Horrotian, who was sitting on her bed, nursing the infant Sarah, while little Josh, now a sturdy red-haired toddler of two years old, was dragging a headless wooden horse about the well-scrubbed floor.
“Why, none as I can think on,” somewhat moodily returned Mrs. Joshua Horrotian’s husband, who sat upon a bench not far off, engaged in doing what he would have technically termed “a bit of sogering”—represented inthe polishing of divers chain-straps, buttons, badges, and belt-buckles to the brightest point of brilliancy attainable by the use of scraps of “shammy” and whitened rag.
“Unless,” he added, “being well-disposed towards our country and our people, he med-be were to ask us to go snacks with ’n in a European War. With the Pruskis or th’ Ruskis—that be showin’ their teeth just now at the Turkeys—there baint much to choose between Foreigners anyway,” said Joshua oracularly. “Not but what,” he continued, with an afterthought, “they French Frogs be foreigners, too. And us have fought ’em in the Duke’s day—and learned ’em the taste of a beating. ’Twould be oddish, now I come to think of it,” said the trooper musingly, “for we to take ’em for Allies at this time o’ day! And howsomever friendly this new Emperor may call hisself, there baint no gettin’ away from the truth of his being the nephew o’ the man as we boxed up inSt.Helena—and his being, by reason o’ that, a poor, out-at-elbows, shabby kind o’ beggar—till his luck took the turn. ’Taint in Nature to suppose he’s as uncommon fond of us as he makes out. I’m dodgasted,” said Josh, employing the Sloughshire imprecation, “if I should be in his place! What be ye thinking of, my Pretty?”
For Nelly was looking at him across the baby, with a dubious wrinkle between her hazel eyes.
“Could I love ’e, I do wonder,” she breathed in the ear he leaned to her, “supposing you’d went and killed a live man!”
“It wouldn’t be a man, Pretty—it would be an enemy!” explained the trooper in all sober faith.
“But a man for all—of live flesh and blood!” Her sweet underlip turned downwards like a grieved child’s. The trooper said, after a slight reflective pause:
“Why, dash my button-stick! I never thought of the beggar in that light. Howsomever, the chances are that th’ boot might be on t’other leg—as far as the killing went. Halloa! Why, what’s this for?”
He had been leaning forwards, looking at the baby, and his handsome head was very near the bosom whence it drank. So, pierced by the stab of that light careless reference to the grim chances of War, Nelly had thrown her strong young arm about her husband’s neck, and snatched him to her, panting:
“Oh, if he ever dared!... The wicked—wicked——”
Mrs. Geogehagan, squatting on her own bed mending her Corporal’s overalls, cried herrings in reprobation:
“Wickud, is ut? Sure, and wouldn’t his wife—whoever she was, poor craythur!—an’ whatever outlandish, quare kind av lingo she might use to spake her mind in, be afther havin’ an aiqual right to say the same av your man?”
Mrs. Geogehagan went on to say that Active Service, meanin’ liberal Bounties, and more Pay, and the chances of Promotion, the jooty of every raal soldier’s wife was to lep out av her skin wid joy at the wind av the worrud av a War.
The intelligence being shortly afterwards conveyed to Moggy that “ould Boney’s nevey” was seeking a consort among the marriageable daughters of European Reigning Sovereigns, she cried more herrings on the outrajis impidence of the man.
“A mane little jumped-up spigareethahaun!... Offerin’ himself to ivery King’s daughter in Creation before the sate of his throne is warrum!... Begob! we’d have him axing Queen Victoria herself to stan’ up before the priest wid him—supposing herself wasn’t suited wid a betther man!”
His Imperial Majesty’s repeated failures to secure a suitable alliance caused Moggy exquisite gratification. She relented towards him a little upon his officially-announced determination to follow the dictates of his heart, and tread the flower-strewn path of connubial happiness, indicated by the implacable hunting-whip of Mademoiselle de Montijo. Public Securities went down two francs; Court jewelers, dressmakers, tailors, modistes and florists, wine-merchants and confectioners, danced like happy motes in the golden rays of Imperial Patronage; and Marquises, Dukes, and Counts of Napoleon I.’s creation—who had crept out of dark forgotten corners when the Empire came in again—cleaned the dust off their forelegs, and spread their crumpled wings, and buzzed like joyous bluebottles about the tables being spread for the Wedding Banquet. Most of the nobles of the defunct Monarchy danced to the tune Monsiegneur played them. But the ancient Duchesse de Viellecourt and the venerable Marquis de l’Autretemps, and the younger scions of the Old Régime—these would not shake a leg for him, however he might pipe.
But Paris was very gay indeed, blazing with new uniforms and newer bonnets,—bristling with lances, bayonets, and expectation.... The bustle and clamor were prodigious, the rattle of drums and the blare of trumpets, the squealing of feminine sightseers crushed in the crowd—the cursing of male citizens whose toes had been pounded by rifle-butts, made thick the air. Swarms of foreigners, avid to behold the pageant, filled the hotels and boarding-houses to bursting—you may imagine the accent of Albion predominant in the salad of mingled pronunciations—you may suppose the gold of the Briton clanking royally into the Gaul’s trouser-pockets and tills.
Upon the carriage of the Imperialcortége,— (each drawn by six white horses) the arms of the Bourbons had been effaced in favor of the Imperial Crown. Over which the golden letters “N” and “E” had been tastefully emblazoned on a chaste cerulean blue background....Thecarriage was drawn by eight prancing steeds, adorned with nodding plumes. And its domed roof was topped with an Imperial Crown of dimensions that caused the vehicle to sway and to wobble; so that the Eagle perching at each corner, and the Loves and Graces painted on its panels of mother-o’-pearl and golden lacquer, shuddered as though palsied with ceremonial stage-fright.
Sixteen colossal gilt eagles perched on the hoary towers of Notre Dame, brooding with outspread wings of blessing over the nuptial solemnities. Everything that could be draped, was draped with green velvet powdered with golden bees. The nave was carpeted with green. The Canopy above the Imperial Throne, and the Matrimonial Chair upon the dais (covered with a white carpet spotted with black, to represent ermine)—was of crimson velvet, bee-besprinkled. Above the Canopy was another Imperial Crown, on which sat another eagle—apparently of solid gold.
Referring to the Imperial Wedding number of theLadies’ Mentor—into which entrancing periodical Mrs. Geogehagan,—acting during a delicate domestic crisis as nurse to a new baby of the Colonel’s lady—occasionally got a peep—it appears the Empress—already admitted to that title by the civil ceremony, was dazzling andspirituellein a dress and train of whitevelours épinglé, and a diadem of superb diamonds, with a veil ofpoint d’Angleterre.The Emperor,—admitted to be at considerable disadvantage in point of height as compared with his stately bride,—wore the Grand Cross and Collar of the Legion of Honor, with many other Stars and Orders, above the uniform of a French General of Division,—ending in white doeskins, high boots with four-inch heels, and spurs.
Five Cardinal-Archbishops and ten Bishops tied the sacred knot between them. Hooroo, Jude! Mrs. Geogehagan blessed herself to think of that. And so, attended by Ladies of Honor, Ministers, Marshals of France, and other State dignitaries, with Foreign Envoys and Minister Plenipotentiaries, the wedding-guests and a tag-rag and bobtail of Notabilities, Personages, and gilded and upholstered Functionaries—the splendid procession returned to the Tuileries.
Nothing—observed the Imperial Press organs—could be more proper than the attitude of the people. Not a single hostile expression was heard by the official reporter along the route. A statement of the purest verity, for although the troops and the salaried hoorayers shouted “Vive l’Empereur! Vive l’Impératrice!” at certain fixed intervals, the frozen silence of the people as that leaden, puffy face of Monsiegneur’s passed by in the great creaking gilded coach beside the snow-white face of the beautiful Empress—was unbroken and profound.
He had become, perforce, accustomed to these silent acclamations, as, nodding as mechanically as any China Mandarin, he would be carried through the streets of the capital he had besmeared with blood. For though he had gagged the Assembly—swept the boulevards with discharges of grape, ridden down and sabered Frenchmen and Frenchwomen in broad daylight—locked the doors of the High Court of Justice—faked aSenatus Consultum, forged signatures to the Ballot Papers of thePlebisciteby the cartload; refurbished old Napoleon’s dusty throne—mounted the seat—clapped his wings and cockadoodled the Prince of Knaves into the Emperor of Traitors—he could not make his people cheer.
Students and grisettes, artisans and their sweethearts, might exclaim at the beauty of the Empress and the splendor of her jewels. Not one woman envied her—not one man would have changed places withhim. Wherever his puffy face and leaden eyes turned, as he bowed from sideto side with the mechanical courtesy of a clockwork puppet or the Mandarin of China—not a hat was raised—not a handkerchief waved,—not a voice wished him long life or happiness. The regard that met his was as bleak, and cold, and nipping as the bitter January day.
He could intern those who had offended him in distant provincial townships. In cells of civil prisons, in dungeons of Military Fortresses, he could immure others, for the term of their natural lives. He could sentence yet others to be hugged to death by the Red Widow, or have them shot; and he did constantly. But none the more could he make the people cheer.
There were faces more exalted that as coldly regarded his pretensions. To wit, those Reigning Monarchs, parents of marriageable daughters who had declined the honor of his hand. Also the young Emperor of Austria, and the King of Prussia, and more formidable than all these put together, the grim Colossus of the icy North.
By Nicholas Romanoff, Autocrat of all the Russias,—who lived as plainly as the humblest of his soldiers, and died on a sack of leather stuffed with hay—the Tsar to whom Monsiegneur—when merely Monsiegneur—had made secret and ineffectual overtures with a view to the dismemberment and division of the Ottoman Empire—the brand-new Imperial Majesty of France was treated with a distant civility that galled and stung—as possibly it was meant to do.
England, the ancient, tried, and proven ally of Russia, was presently to bind herself in monstrous alliance with the crowned adventurer. The chaste Victoria was to dance at his Embassy—visit his capital—kiss him upon both cheeks—strange pasture for lips so stainless!—and call him “Sire my Brother.”
But to Nicholas—until he became “Sire my Enemy,” he was never to be anything but “Sire my Friend.”